“It’s been two hours, I think,” said Paul after staring at his phone around ten seconds. “Jesus,” he said, and sneezed.
Entering Lucie’s party, an hour and a half later, Paul felt like if he wasn’t careful he would fall in an out-of-control, top-heavy manner toward whomever he was greeting and hurt himself and multiple others by reflexively grabbing people and pulling them down with him in a continuing effort to remain standing. He realized he might be unconsciously hunching his back, to be nearer the floor, when Lucie, though four or five inches shorter, appeared to be above him as she thanked him for linking her magazine on his blog. Paul introduced Lucie and other people to Laura by saying “this is Laura” a few times without looking at anyone’s face, while moving toward areas with less people. “Hey,” said Paul, as he passed Mitch in a crowded space, and mumbled something about “going somewhere,” which in combination with a peremptory nodding was meant to convey they would definitely talk at length, later tonight, since they hadn’t seen each other in a long time — months, maybe.
In an empty kitchen, a few seconds later, Paul realized Mitch, who worked for Zipcar, had driven him and Laura — and others — to this party. Paul stared into a refrigerator, bent at his waist, waiting for himself, it seemed, to think or do something. “Trying to choose two beers,” he thought after a vague amount of time, and chose two at random, then found Laura and went with her through a window, onto a fourth-story roof, where they passed a shadowy area, emanating the language-y noises and phantom heat of four to six people, to a higher area, where they were alone. Paul, dangling his legs briefly off the building, scooted backward, passively cooperative, as a distracted-seeming Laura pulled him away from the edge. They sat facing hundreds of the same type of four-story building, the expanse of which, in most directions, darkened dramatically, creating an illusion that one could see the Earth’s curvature, until blurring, in the distance, into a texture. Sometimes, looking at a city, especially a gray or brown one, at night, Paul would intuitively view it as a small and irreducible thing that arrived one summer and rapidly grew, showing patterns of color on its expanding surface, then was discolored by autumn and removed of its exterior and deadened by winter, in preparation for regrowth, in spring, but was unable, in its form, to enter the natural cycle, so continued growing, in a manner as if faceless and skinless, through summer, autumn, etc., less in belligerence or tyranny, or with some abstruse knowledge of its own rightness, than as a stranded thing, sightless and uninstructed, with an objectless sort of yearning. Seeing the streets and bridges and sidewalks, while living inside a building, locked in a room, one could forget that it was all a single, alien, seeking entity.
Paul realized he and Laura had been staring into the distance — unaware of each other, it seemed — for maybe two or three minutes. He looked at her profile. Without moving her head, in a voice like she was still considering if this was true, she said Paul was “devious” for bringing her to a party where another girl liked him.
“What girl likes me?”
“Lucie,” said Laura after a few seconds, still staring ahead, systematically reinterpreting her and Paul’s prior interactions, it seemed, with this new information.
“Why do you think she likes me?”
“I can tell,” said Laura, and lit a cigarette.
“She has a boyfriend,” said Paul.
Laura said something seemingly unrelated about cooking.
“You should cook for me,” said Paul distractedly.
“You won’t like it — it’ll be dense and unhealthy.”
“I like pasta and lasagna,” said Paul, and thought he heard Laura ask if his computer was in Canada and was nervous she might be confusing him for another person. “What computer?”
“You said your computer was getting fixed in Canada.”
“Oh,” said Paul. “Kansas, not Canada. Yeah, it’s still there.”
On their way back inside Paul and Laura passed the shadowy area, from where an unseen Amy said something implying Laura had stolen her cigarettes, using the word “cute” antagonistically. Paul had an urge to accelerate, but Laura, ahead of him, continued at her leisurely pace, maneuvering carefully through the window, into the kitchen.
Paul followed a slow-moving Laura through a long, dark, almost boomerang-shaped hallway, which felt briefly room-like, as they sort of lingered in it, or like it wanted to be a room, with furniture and guests, but maybe was shy and too afraid of causing disappointment, so impaired itself with two conspicuous openings to conventionally shaped rooms, a sort of recommendation against itself. Paul and Laura entered a large room of sofas and tables and eight to twelve people, including Daniel, who encouraged Paul to “test-drive” a foot-massage machine, which was on the floor, audibly bubbling hot water.
“Take off your shoes and socks,” said Daniel.
“I don’t want to use that,” said Paul, and turned around and distractedly sat on a backless, deeply padded, uncomfortable seat, which yielded at least a foot from Paul’s weight. Laura was ten feet away, in a throne-like chair, facing Paul, but not looking at him, or anyone, it seemed. Paul openly stared at her for around ten seconds, to no response, then moved chips and guacamole onto his lap (partly because he felt anxious about Laura seeming to refuse to look at him) and focused on steadily eating while repeatedly thinking “eating chips and guacamole.” He looked at his hands, and felt his mouth and throat, doing what he was thinking, and felt vaguely confused. Was he instructing his brain? Or was he narrating what he saw and felt?
Laura seemed less distracted, but more worried, than before. Paul moved toward her with what felt like a precariously sustained gliding motion and sat against and above her, on the chair’s sturdy armrest, in a comically awkward manner he hadn’t foreseen and was preparing to reverse, by returning to his seat, when Laura lifted his arm and placed it ungently around her neck — maybe a little disappointed that she had to do it herself — where it remained, independent and heavy as a small boa constrictor, for a vague amount of time, during which Paul, remaining almost completely still, felt increasingly reluctant to move, or speak. At some point, maybe three minutes later, Paul asked if Laura wanted to go to the other party.
“Yes,” she said.
Paul felt like parts of his and Laura’s bodies, as they stood on the front stoop hugging tightly under one umbrella, waiting for Walter’s car, were oppositely charged magnets covered with thick velvet. Paul crawled into Walter’s car’s backseat, spilling red wine; unable to find the cork, he wrapped the bottle in a plastic bag. He faced ahead, seated between two people, and realized no one had cared, or noticed, at all, it seemed, about the wine. Paul thought “I’m in hell” when people began to loudly mimic the guitar parts of the Led Zeppelin playing from a tape deck, resulting mostly in demonic-sounding noises and a kind of metallic, nightmarish screeching. Paul couldn’t discern if they did this regularly, or if it had just been improvised. “Ambien has a negative effect on music for me,” he thought.